gives me the option for toolstripcontainer1, however, even if the red x is clicked on the search bar, all the values of 'visible', are still true, and doing .Show() on control[0].Show() doesnt do anything either.

Do i need to specify my own toolbar? If i add my own toolbar to the roster control, will it not show the default one in there?

Do i just need to handle my own roster control (I prefer not to do this)?

I finally got it by including the 'roster' from the agsxmpp.ui folder into my project, like you stated. Then changing the toolStrip modifiers to public, so that i can directly call the .Show() from the primary program.